Spring, Sprang, Sprung

Spring color on the edge of Nashville

It’s the first day of spring, i.e., the vernal equinox, and on a near-distant hillside at the southern edge of Nashville, just above the walls of limestone exposed by dynamite blasts from when they built I-65, tufts of green have appeared, almost as if overnight. I see them while I eat half a granola bar in the solitude of a vacant office, inside the 70s-era, four-story, castle-like (minus the towers, crenellations, and medieval fenestrations) brick building which houses the reference lab where I burn a weekly forty. Bark flapping on a river birch, which I see from a different window, resembles the toss-and-lift of preening bird wings.

Spring has its beauty, but it also means the heat is coming. It means flower beds need a new layer of pine straw, weeds need spraying, and the lawn needs—gulp—mowing (I cringe every time I hear a neighbor’s mower crank up; I delay this chore as long as possible, but it’s like some of my neighbors just can’t wait). So I’ll be spending the next few weeks trying to figure out how to pause these milder temperatures, and how to make the redbuds and the dogwoods hold onto their blossoms a little longer.